MARK Hughes shouldered the blame as Samba Diakite was sent-off on his debut in this afternoon's derby defeat to Fulham.

The Mali midfielder saw red midway through the first-half as Pavel Pogrebnyak's early goal separated the sides at Loftus Road .

And QPR boss Hughes admits he made a mistake thrusting the African into the starting XI.

He said: "I don't think the discipline was bad. Obviously it was his debut and he wanted to make an impression.

"He was enthusiastic but I don't think he was reckless. He mistimed challenges and unfortunately for him he doesn't know the league as of yet.

"In fairness, I take responsibility for that as in the ideal world you want to introduce him to the Premier League a bit more slowly. But given our circumstances we need good players on the pitch and I think up to the point of his sending off I thought he was excellent and arguably our best player.

"Obviously we need to keep the full complement of players on the pitch because if we don't it will be difficult for us.

"We haven't managed that in our last two home games so it is pretty clear where our real problem lies."